Syndicate

Dec. 17th, 2009

well that explains a lot

mood: cold

Oh, -17C? That must be why I'm shivering. I've got to go pick up my new glasses today, but I'm really not so keen on going out. This is forehead-freezing weather, people, when those ice crystals start forming in your eyelashes.

On the plus side, if it stays below zero for awhile the canal should freeze well. I'm already craving beavertails!

Dec. 13th, 2009

$%"*@#$*# Merlin

I owe a real update soon, but it won't be today. Suffice is to say that real life is surreal these days, blending with fandom in unexpected and amazing ways. Instead, have a snowy picture:

I took ton of pictures yesterday, and as usual there was only one I liked -- it's the lines of the buildings and the railing, kinda flow-y. By the way, that's the Rideau Canal, aka my skating rink. The snow's pretty, but it's going to be ages before it freezes at this rate. It's hardly ever open for skating before Christmas, I know, but every year I hope.

Nov. 5th, 2009

SNOW!!!!

mood: hopeful

music: Glee soundtrack (shup!)

Which was kinda weird to see -- I mean, mentally I've been trying to brace myself*, but when I looked out the window to see things moving nearly horizontally across my view, my first thought was "what an odd rain." (Followed quickly by nooooooooooooooooooooo.)

Also, deakat is a goddess! She waved her magic wand over my laptop (she called it installing drivers, but I caught a glimpse of her wand before she stashed it away) and now my screencapture software works, and we maybe have an (albeit imperfect) workaround to nab episodes of AWZ.

To celebrate, we watched Bandits, which was AWESOME! Wonderful cracky fun right up until the end. (The end which I have recut in my head.) And now I have a long list of new movies I must see staring Katja Riemann *sigh* My work is never done.

So in conclusion, today looks a bit brighter than yesterday, despite the grey snow clouds overhead.

* Sorry, much as I love Canada, this transplanted Texan is never going to fully embrace winter. At least I don't run screaming to the Dominican Republic anymore...

Jan. 15th, 2009

Critter concerns (and a bit of Merlin that you knew was coming)

mood: quixotic

music: The Divine Comedy - The Frog Princess

The mice are back. Molly was going nuts last night, so much so that I got out of bed several times to see what was causing her to stampede through the apartment like a mad thing. I finally gave up and put it down to her just being her normal mad self. Then this morning I found the tell-tale droppings. Not that I can blame the wee beasties for seeking warmth, it's -25 out, but why do they have to find it here with me? I do have a cat, you know.

And finally, there's this bit of awesomeness. Doctor Who meets Firefly. *loves*

Right. My head's all kinds of scattered today, what with cat stuff and trip stuff and work, so I'm off to curl up under the blankets with some yummy fic. For such a cracky show, there's some lovely angst coming out of it. Good night!

Dec. 15th, 2008

You know you've been spending too much time in fandom when you dream that you've found undeniable canon proof in a script that one of your characters is a definite top, and your dream focuses on how to still make it work with him as a bottom.

This weekend was fun and productive! I've been flying through clips of AWZ, cutting them down for subtitling. Seeing all the crackfed plots that we missed with the super-short clips, we've come up with a new tagline for the Eskimo Kiss Project: "Slogging through the crap so you don't have to!" aldiara is doing a bang-up job of extracting 7-10 minutes of gold from each 25 minute episode, and making them make sense, somehow, without including the stupid. Amazing!!

We had our monthly slashers' brunch yesterday too -- it was a tiny group this time, just five of us. The bus strike is definitely taking its toll! I walked the 3km there and back -- not bad going, but in the sleet coming back a shell of hard ice formed all around my coat. I was toasty warm inside, but a bit shocked when I got home!

But it was still fun to hang out for hours and gab with the girls. And I might possibly have enticed paraka to travel with me!!!! That would be so cool!! Speaking of, my dear, I am going to have to put my itinerary together to send you later today. It's a mass of scribbles right now and makes no sense to me, much less anybody else. But it's on its way!!

paraka is also being a Superstar and putting together an intro/credit video for our youtube channel. I can't wait to see what she comes up with!

And that brings us full circle on my life. Pretty smooth for a Monday, eh? *has another cup of coffee*

Nov. 3rd, 2008

Keeping going

mood: peaceful

music: Thea Gilmore - You Turn Me Round

My walks always start out as a crawl. I have to drag myself off the couch and into my shoes, then out the door. Then I have to psych myself up: "I'll just do a short walk today" or "I'll just go to the Parliament gates." But once I get going, I keep going: "I'm at the Parliament gates, I might as well climb the stairs and get to the building itself", then "I've already climbed the steps, I might as well see if there are any cats out today", then "I'm already up here, I might as well walk around the outlook over the river", then "I could go straight home by the road, but taking the canal footpath would be so much nicer..."

Every time I do this, it seems I get some kind of reward for keeping going. Last week it was seeing the strip of snow on just the north side of the trees; yesterday it was turning a corner and stumbling upon a farmer's market. Today it's that the canal, which had been drained of water until it was almost empty, is filling up again. The water's risen now to right under the kiosks. Know what that means? Yep, beavertails and hot chocolate and skating on the canal!

It also means winter's right around the corner, which I'm strangely okay with.

Mar. 28th, 2008

"Spring seeps north"

mood: moody

Today's one of those grey spring days, where the city's so wrapped in clouds and the sun is so pale that it feels like the world's largest fluorescent light. Sometimes I think I could write a book about the weather, but then I remember that Annie Dillon already did, and much better than I ever could:

So. I have been thinking about the change of seasons. I don't want to miss spring this year. I want to distinguish the last winter frost from the out-of-season one, the frost of spring. I want to be there on the spot the moment the grass turns green. I always miss this radical revolution; I see it the next day from a window, the yard so suddenly green and lush I could envy Nebuchadnezzar down on all fours eating grass. This year I want to stick a net into time and say "now," as men plant flags on the ice and snow and say "here."

And I want to notice this too, but I think I've already missed it. The air feels different; even if the thermometer still hovers around 0, it lacks that undercurrent of cold that it did a few weeks ago. Spring seeps north, like Annie promised.

And my plant—the one that had frozen in the window—is sprouting new leaves!

~~~~~~~

pushdragon just introduced me to a new (to me) artist at LJ, Raitala, and I'm absolutely floored by her Lucius and Draco. She perfectly captures Lucius' angry disappointment and that inscrutable mask that the Draco in my mind has always mastered. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous!

Mar. 14th, 2008

Fly-by post

mood: sleepy

music: The Magnetic Fields - Papa Was A Rodeo

Ooh, I like the new posting format. Shiny!

Finally wrestled my ides_of_march fic to the ground and made it cry "Uncle." This was one of the most difficult pieces I've written and I've been worried about getting it in on time. It's a different style than I'm used to, which was good practice in itself, but that was compounded by the fact that it's from Draco's POV. I have newfound respect for people who can nail that! I find it much easier to write a Harry who is uncertain about Draco's motives -- I wonder if that's because all we get in canon is a shell of this character. When I started digging into there ... phew!

Speaking of Draco ... I feel awful that I'm just now getting around to thanking her, but twilightsorcery gave me a gorgeous drawble for my birthday. I love the expression, he looks like something dark is going on there. Thank you so much, darling!

I'm sure y'all are tired of the weather updates, but it snowed again today. I'm betting this puts us over 14 feet for the year. The snow removal trucks have slowly made their way through, though, and the strip between the sidewalk and the street (what's that called) is clear now. Unfortunately I saw quite a few mangled bikes attached to fences, but I guess if you leave your bike to be covered in snow you don't care too much, right?

But Jackie shared the secret to the perfect winter meal. Take a good handful of tiny potatoes (they call them "potato gems" here, they come in all colours; the larger ones I cut in half), throw them in a baking pan with a generous helping of olive oil, and bake uncovered at 450 degrees for 40 minutes. They come out crispy on the outside and fluffy inside; eat with ketchup mixed with a hearty dash of Thai chili sauce. Have a Guinness while you're at it. Hey, I never said it was healthy, but it's wonderfully filling.

Mar. 9th, 2008

Overdue update

mood: lethargic

It's been a while since I've posted, and I'm just as far behind on commenting to people's posts. I apologise. I'm afraid I've sunk into a pretty hefty winter funk, that wasn't helped by this weekend's storm that dumped another 50 cm, on top of the 377 cm (11.5 feet!!) we had before. I'm losing the will to live!

Well, not quite, but unfortunately I've lost the ability to say anything witty or engaging. I'm reading through my flist every day, but I just can't summon the energy to comment, even when I'd very much like to. And that bothers me because you guys are very important to me -- you're my sanity check. (And isn't that a scary thought?) I really hope I can snap out of this soon.

Daylight Savings Time is *not* helping.

It's not like I've been sitting around moping, though. I actually slogged through the snow (and only fell once) to see two movies: Juno and In Bruges. Juno was a lot better than I expected (I was very suspicious given all the hype) but I don't think it deserved an Oscar nom for best picture (then again, I did think it was better than that eye candy Atonement). In Bruges, however, was exactly the kind of dark humour that I needed. Ralph Fiennes' performance alone was worth the price of admission.

I'm also on a mission to bring the frozen plant in my window back to life. I'm hoping warm water and plant food will help. I need a Risen Mitten like on Torchwood... (Speaking of, do read sam_storyteller's Trying to Communicate, but only with beverages at a safe distance.)

Finally, I've just read the new LJ "conversation". At last they've admitted in a policy document that there's nothing legally wrong with fanart, they just don't like it so it's banned. Nice. I just don't understand how people in fandom can continue to support that company. (Oh, that reminds me, I've got pics uploaded in my LJ photo album, I need to grab them before my account expires next month.) And is anybody else getting Cyrillic spam? For the past week, my gmail spam box has been DELUGED!

Feb. 16th, 2008

Brrrrr it's cold out there

mood: shivering still

music: Cold Miser song in my head

So tonight Jackie and I needed to warm up after going to the nighttime Winterlude, an altogether different (and much colder) experience. We wandered into Hooley's, ostensibly an Irish bar, but once inside (and decloaked, which meant we weren't about to leave), we noticed the servers' "uniforms" -- the shortest mini-skirt kilts you'd ever see, bare legs down to their snow boots, zip-up jackets, and toques. Yes, we were in the Canadian Hooters. It was -12 outside, and not that much warmer inside -- would it have killed them to wear some tights? Does goose pimpled flesh really elicit that much more in tips?

Still, there was Guinness and great conversation, and what else could you ask for on a frigid winter night?

I snapped just a few more pictures of the ice sculptures. Sorry to innundate you with these; rest assured this will be the last batch, since from here on out there's little appealing about our winter. There aren't nearly as many as last time, because my batteries were dying, but it'll give you an idea of how gorgeous they are at night with the coloured lights shining through.

Dec. 17th, 2007

Winter wonderland my ass

Check out thesepictures. No, not mine, but after wading through thigh-high snow to drag walk a sheltie, I can personally confirm that we have indeed gotten this much snow today.

And it's still coming down.

One really cool thing tho: because it's so cold (-13C) the moisture on the surface has frozen and the snow is sparkling, like there are tiny fairy lights just under the top layer of white. It's really beautiful. If it wasn't so cold (yes, I did say -13C) I'd go back out to take some pictures.

Dec. 16th, 2007

So much stuff

mood: chipper

music: The Magnetic Fields: I Don't Love You

I've been dismal at keeping in touch with the flist this week, so I do apologise. I've spent most of the week trying to catch up on work I missed while I was away. (Someday I'll have a real vacation, not one where everything needs to be crammed into the days after I come back. I suspect a month off would do it. A month off, wouldn't that be dreamy?)

Nonetheless, I wouldn't have traded last weekend for the world. I decided it'd be a good idea to recap a bit of it -- I had some good times I want to remember and a few pictures to share with y'all. ( Holly came from Miami FLA )

Came back to work work and more work, but still, it's been a pretty good week. Yesterday I received some amazing news -- one of my stories was nominated for a Men of Middle Earth Award in their "classics" category. I'm gobsmacked! Not only is this my first nomination ever, but it's for the very first fanfic I ever wrote. And yes, the story's entirely predictable with hideous clichés, but still! Giddy!

And I've made some tremendous headway with Architects of Memory and I just posted another exciting chapter. Woot! After so much buildup, it's finally all falling into place ... and hopefully avoids being predictable or clichéd. *hopes*

I've also found a new knitting project: the storm water shawl. Some day soon this will be draped over ME! I'll have to go buy some yarn first though, and I'm not headed anywhere for awhile. It's snowing now. Except it's not snowing so much as blizzarding in every direction at once. It's like those first few seconds in a snow globe when everything is swirling around too fast to see the figures inside. Hi, that would be me!